Nadia Rosenthal

Adjunct Professor

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Prof Rosenthal uses molecular genetic strategies to investigate mechanisms of development, disease, and tissue regeneration. Her team’s research focuses on the role of growth factors, stem cells and the immune system in the resolution of tissue injury for applications to regenerative medicine, and has led to significant advances in novel cell-based therapies for muscle and heart ageing and disease.

Research in the Rosenthal group concentrates on embryonic heart development, ageing mechanisms and stem cell-driven regeneration of neuromuscular and cardiac tissue, using the mouse as a model for human response to disease and the axolotl as an example of full adult regenerative capacity. The Group’s studies are designed to define the common nodal points of signaling in regenerative processes and the role played by the immune response in controlling inflammation and promoting tissue repair.

Nadia has exceptional scientific credentials, including 16 years as a biomedical researcher at Harvard Medical School and 12 years as Head of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) Outstation in Monterotondo near Rome, Italy. She is the founding Scientific Director of the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute (ARMI) at Monash University and also holds a Chair in Cardiovascular Science at Imperial College London.

Born in the United States, Nadia Rosenthal was awarded a PhD in 1981 from Harvard Medical School and trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institutes of Health. After holding academic research posts in Boston at Children’s Hospital and Boston University School of Medicine she moved to the Cardiovascular Research Center at Harvard Medical School, where she directed a biomedical research laboratory at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She co-edited the definitive text Heart Development and served for a decade on the editorial staff at the New England Journal of Medicine, where she was Consultant of Molecular Medicine and editor of the Molecular Medicine series.

Professor Rosenthal’s research at ARMI focuses on the developmental genetics of heart and skeletal muscle, the molecular biology of ageing and the role of growth factors, stem cells and the immune system in tissue regeneration. She is an EMBO member, and recipient of the Ferrari-Soave Prize in Cell Biology and Doctors Honoris Causa from the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris and University of Amsterdam. She has served on numerous international grant review committees, advisory panels and editorial boards and has coordinated several major EU consortia on mouse genetics and disease models.

As part of a longstanding relationship with the Australian research community, Professor Rosenthal is a member of the Australia and New Zealand Society for Cell and Developmental Biology, for whom she designed the prestigious ANZSCDB Presidents Medal. She has been a faculty member of the Australian Developmental Biology Workshop and is also a Visiting Professor at University of Western Australia. She currently holds an Australia Fellowship.

Professor Rosenthal spearheaded the election of Australia to EMBL as its first Associate Member, and serves as Scientific Head of EMBL Australia.